{"id":885,"date":"2008-11-21T01:01:34","date_gmt":"2008-11-21T01:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/11\/twilight.html"},"modified":"2008-11-21T01:01:34","modified_gmt":"2008-11-21T01:01:34","slug":"twilight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/11\/twilight.html","title":{"rendered":"Twilight"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve had a few inquiries about Twilight<\/em>, the book series, now beginning its film life, about vampires and the girls who love them.
\nI didn’t read the books, but my daughter did, succumbing to peer pressure. She hated them, although I still am not sure how much of the hate was real and how much was stubbornness. Well, I will say that her critiques of the book are consistent with the critiques I’ve heard others make, so perhaps it was real – she said they were repetitious to the extreme, not very-well written and she thought the central female character was a pathetic piece of work.
\nDespite not being the closest observer of the Twilight <\/em>phenomenon, I will still say that even from the outside, the whole thing seems disturbing to me, and not because of any occult content, but rather because of the overheated needy romanticism that seems to be at the heart of the hysteria. Blech.
\nA few links, and add your own thoughts.
\nRegina Doman reviewed the first book in the series here.<\/a>
\nA very critical look at Spes Unica<\/a>
\nJeffrey Overstreet’s review will be up Friday, but he posts today about his reaction to the reaction:<\/a><\/p>\n

Sure, the basic \u201cBeauty and the Beast\u201d elements are at work here. They will always work. I\u2019m not going to deny that the Power of Myth is at work in this story. What disappoints me is how poorly it is developed, how many opportunities for thoughtful storytelling are bypassed for the sake of including long sequences that amount to \u201cHow far can we go without actually fornicating?\u201d If you want a good vampire story involving a fascinating, monstrous vampire and an engaging heroine, check out Robin McKinley\u2019s book\u00a0Sunshine<\/em>. Now THAT would make an interesting movie!
\nBut don\u2019t tell me that this is a love story. This is a lust story. You have to get to know someone to really be \u201cin love\u201d with them. Otherwise, it\u2019s just hormones. Good luck with everything after.
\nRemember the lesson of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind<\/em>? If we make hasty commitments in the rush of infatuation, we\u2019re in trouble. We need to be ready to \u201ccarry each other\u201d (as the song says), and to live with and love the brokennes and the rough edges. These two are already saying \u201cYou are my life\u201d before they\u2019ve seen past the pretty facade. Bella is pledging herself to a stranger, drawn only by his burdened expression, his high David Lynch forehead, and his gel-sculpted hair. (Sure, he saves her life, but only after she\u2019s already smitten.)
\nI cannot think of a weaker female \u201cheroine\u201d than Bella. She cannot do anything for herself\u2014anything. <\/em>She can only surrender to her ill-advised infatuation. She lectures one of her friends on being an empowered, independent woman, but cannot put that into practice herself. I\u2019ve known girls just like her. They did not end up in healthy relationships. They ended up getting hurt again and again by guys who were alluring and exciting, but eventually abusive and selfish.
\nThese days, it seems the every successive generation gets its repackaging of the Vampire Story as Romance. Those who enjoyed the Buffy phenomenon were treated to some remarkable pleasures and some memorable storytelling, not to mention spectacularly creative television. Based on what I\u2019ve seen so far, this new generation\u2019s inspired by the same inspiring material, but their version is sub-standard and misguided.
\nThere\u2019s nothing wrong with a good vampire story, or a story about redeemable monsters. But this film splashes around in the shallowest end of the pool of love stories. Or better, it only dips its toes in, inclining us to follow our emotions. Some may claim it\u2019s about being open-minded toward one another. To me, it looked like Bella\u2019s mind was so open that her brain fell out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve had a few inquiries about Twilight, the book series, now beginning its film life, about vampires and the girls who love them. I didn’t read the books, but my daughter did, succumbing to peer pressure. She hated them, although I still am not sure how much of the hate was real and how much…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nTwilight - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/11\/twilight.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Twilight - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’ve had a few inquiries about Twilight, the book series, now beginning its film life, about vampires and the girls who love them. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}